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A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
01
Why this pick
Like Two-Lane Blacktop, it turns a cross-country drive into a stripped-down existential odyssey, propelled by engines, empty roads, sparse dialogue, and an increasingly unreal sense of freedom.
02
Why this pick
Its loose, confrontational New Hollywood form and drifting, damaged Americana share Hellman’s refusal to turn road-movie material into conventional plot or psychology.
03
Why this pick
Malick’s coolly observed fugitives, wide-open American landscapes, and emotionally withheld performances create a similarly haunting distance between people, action, and place.
04
Why this pick
This bleak, unvarnished portrait of people moving through marginal American spaces has the same lived-in locations, anti-dramatic pacing, and elusive emotional pull.
05
Why this pick
Its radical patience, minimal speech, deadpan companionship, and landscape-driven tension echo the way Two-Lane Blacktop makes duration and disconnection its real drama.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
Two street racingrs, the Driver (Taylor) and the Mechanic (Wilson) live on the road in their highly modified, primer-gray, 1955 Chevrolet 210 two-door sedan drag car and drift from town to town making their income by challenging local residents to impromptu drag races. As they drive east on Route 66 from Needles, California, they pick up the Girl (Bird), a female hitchhiker, in Flagstaff, Arizona when she gets into their car at a diner. Although the Driver develops a crush on the Girl, she sleeps with the Mechanic when the Driver goes out drinking one night. In New Mexico they begin to encounter another car driver, Pontiac GTO (Oates), on the highways. An atmosphere of hostility develops between the two parties. Although GTO is not an overt street racer, and, in fact, seems to know little about cars, a cross-country race to Washington, D.C. is suggested. The Driver proposes that the prize should be "Vehicle title," or legal ownership of the loser's car. Along the way, GTO picks up various hitchhikers, including an importuning homosexual hitchhiker (Harry Dean Stanton). When GTO's inexperience becomes apparent, he, the Driver and the Mechanic form an uneasy alliance; the Driver even drives with him for a while when GTO gets fatigued.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
G.T.O.
Hot Rod Driver
Old Woman
Texas Hitchhiker
Oklahoma Hitchhiker
Man in Roadhouse
The Driver
